Buying for My Future Self, Or, What do I Really Need in order to be Happy?

Time is a beautiful thing to waste so gingerly...

I have been told the four seasons of Mumbai are Temperate, Hot, Hotter, and Monsoon.  While most four-season people cringe at the idea of hot and hotter, I embrace it wholeheartedly.  I enjoy the heat, to a point.  Past 100 Fahrenheit and I'm a bit more indoor-focused, but give me a mid-80s day and I am a happy camper, particularly if the smell of salt water is near.

For now, in the coming cold of winter, I am enjoying each sweater and jacket that I wear, knowing they will soon be past their efficient use and nestled away in dusty storage.  It's a bid odd to think about what needs to be packed, and what needs to be forgotten, for the next two years.  Monsoon season?  Well then you'll certainly need galoshes.  High-held sun?  Well then you'll certainly need sunscreen.  I am trying to buy, organize, and track down all of the toiletries, scattered items, foodstuffs, and accoutrements that might strike my fancy (or scream of necessity) during the next twenty-four months...  Toilet paper, shoes, detergent, shampoo, clothing, pet meds, paperwork, shots, visas, tennis balls, stationary, Pepto, and more!

The list expands and stands,
like dead weight,
cycling on repeat in my head
about what I can't forget.

Which gets me wondering...  
Creature comforts can carry me so far, and coffee in the morning gets my blood pumping but...

What types of things can't I live without?  What can I let be a thing of the past?

Shadows are the dreams we have left behind,
dormant whispers of the past in hiding,
the present awaiting, and the future wishes
left on hold...

The question of the day for readers and myself alike is:
                                                                                        What do we really need in order to be happy?

(Or, what do I project as a wanted good which is really a replacement for lack or limitation of sustained interior nourishment?)

A Goal for 2012

For example, who knew that the Snuggie, Chia Pets, and the Shake Weight wouldn't be in fashion (ever again!) at the turn of 2012?!  And who would have thought the world could live without the  electrically-run twisting spaghetti fork?  I must consider the unthinkable: will I ever survive without large chain store conglomerates?  Will I thrive in a land without fountains of icy cool Diet Coke?

Life is tough, surely, without American novelties.  The good news about myself, I have learned, is that I can quickly adapt to life without running water, large product selection, and housewares when I am living and doing interesting things with likable people.  The prep work of travel, however, always gets me dreaming about what I will inevitably forget and has me worrying about how I could ever survive without what I've (in imagination) forgotten!  In reality, on ground level, the things I fretted about in planning never amount to much of anything.  That is why this year, as a resolution, I am going to take life in stride and embrace whatever scenario is before me... letting go of the control so often expected in well-established daily living. 

                                      So I say this dear friends, with verve: Game on world, game on!